Jack The Lad

China was fun in the end!! Got to Beijing on a nice long train but managed to find a bed so was anything but a rough ride! My couch when I got there was pretty sweet, and met up with a sweede so we teamed up to take on this crazy big city! Was a pretty relaxed time other than the Mongolian visa. 1st day at the office, no, massive cue, twice the price coz its a Monday go figure! 2nd time at the office I arrived an hour early to make sure wwhich was fine but had to pay twice the price to get it back in twice the normal time.. great so had to spend twice the time in a lovely busy, polluted city with spitting locals everywhere! 2 amazing trips to the great ... read more

Welcome to China!! Just about survived the 49hr ferry over and after getting rid of one Dutchman literally 10mins later i stumbled across another Dutch! the boat had its ups and downs but with nothing else to do me and the only other tourist on the boat video blogged the lot so that will save the hassle of re telling the relatively boring story here.. =D so had the day in shanghai and it was a dive. yet again just another one of these big asian cities that dont seem to be all that different. met some forgien students and grabbed lunch and beer with them, prices are awesome here!!! budget should return level after a couple of weeks which is always a good sign! wandered down to the main area of the city were every ... read more

Weather’s had its up and downs recently, Osaka was pretty down! We got soaked haha and the exact words before leaving the house were ‘should we take the umbrellas? Nah should be alright its pretty clear. Yeah we’ll be fine!’ how wrong were we. Still we checked out the city, and were straight away disappointed that it was in fact a city again full of serious suits, subways and high rise buildings! But did find a wiked samurai castle to wander and had our own local guide explain all about the history of this huge place where ‘in WW2 the military used the dried moat as a cabbage patch’ haha. The lovely couple we stayed with were such great cooks and insisted on making us everything they loved about Japanese food, was awesome!! So spoilt ha! ... read more

So after 2 days in Japan this is whats been going on.. Chopsticks are great BUT i have no idea what im eating or drinking, transport is a blind guess, conversation is a great laugh, the culture is awesome like nowhere ive been before which is great. This is what its all about! Everything is in Japanese and theres a lack of english and english speakers. When trying to ask for help we generally end up laughing because noone has a clue whats going on! Still staying with a local Jap on a futon and have plans to find some more locals along the road. Went out to explore the craziness of the city, met a Dutch guy at a shrine and been travelling with him. Theres so many people here, something like 20 million in ... read more